


Lully Lulla Lullay

by ashinan



Category: The Avengers (2012)
Genre: Christmas, Gen, Pre-Slash
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-12-07
Updated: 2011-12-07
Packaged: 2017-10-27 01:12:51
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,009
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/289941
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ashinan/pseuds/ashinan
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Tony can hear the soft thrum of voices rising from one of the open windows, flickering light shifting behind the paned glass. He shouldn't be here, except, well, there's Steve. And he throws all Tony's calculations into wack.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Lully Lulla Lullay

**Author's Note:**

> Was at a Christmas concert and heard the song Lully Lulla Lullay and was bombarded with this idea. Can be seen as an aside to the sleep verse. Enjoy!

The house is quiet and Tony blinks up, staring at the television. It’s off, which is surprising, and the tick-tick-tick of his arc reactor is far too loud in the silence. He shifts, looks at the clock and frowns. It’s after three and Steve usually comes down by now, either to goad him into sleep or to keep him company. Tony rubs the bridge of his nose, grabs his phone, and sends off a quick text. 

‘ _You not coming down tonight?_ ’

He gets up, cracking his back in three places and pads into the kitchen. The brandy he had set out is missing, which means Steve _had_ come downstairs, had confiscated his alcohol and hidden it somewhere again. He looks around, purses his lips, and his phone chimes.

‘ _I went for a walk. I ended up by this church, where they were singing. You can join me if you like.’_

Frowning down at the phone, Tony types in the code to get Steve’s GPS up and running and sighs. He contemplates throwing on an actual suit because he’s still in his work sweats and a grungy black tank, but shrugs and grabs his coat, ducks his feet into expensive boots, and grabs one of the numerous scarves hanging by the door. When he exits the mansion, he gets a blast of cold air to the face and an even colder swipe down his neck. He tucks his neck into the scarf, belatedly realizes its Thor’s, and starts the short trek to Steve’s choice of church.

The walk there is kind of calming, in a strange way, and when Tony locates the church, he can hear the soft hum of voices rising from one of the open windows. There’s light shifting behind paned glass and Tony stops just before the old doors, anxiety flooding his system.

He’s never been one for churches, or God, or the concept of angels. If he _was_ , he would’ve attributed Peggy as his angel, before her death. But this – he wonders, suddenly, if he would be welcome in these hallowed halls, after everything he has done and everything he has yet to do. If, when he enters, he will surely be judged more than he already judges himself. He sighs, and presses his forehead against the wood. The music is gentle, welcoming in that strange sense that Tony has never heard, and he braces himself when he pushes open the doors.

They creak, old hinges catching on their bolts and Tony winces. The music doesn’t falter, doesn’t stop, and he carefully closes the door against the cold. The hall is small, just under fifty pews, and Tony blinks in the flickering candlelight. There’s a fuzzy darkness catching on the edges and it feels warm and safe here, something Tony has never truly attributed to any place he’s set foot in. He pads down the hall, noting the three people that sit in the pews, heads bowed as they listen to the choir hidden up on the altar. There are twenty of them, spread out and wearing black and white suits.

And then Tony catches sight of Steve, sitting with his head tilted back and his eyes closed, fingers laced in his lap. Tony stalls, that same uncertainty making itself known. Steve had told him to come, yes, but there was a ninety two percent chance Steve was using that tact to get Tony to go to sleep. Tony is less inclined to go to a church then to bed. However, Steve hadn’t factored himself into the equation.

Tony swallows, looks up at the choir, and catches one of the tenors watching him. The man stands in the center, voice catching and carrying the others, black hair hanging loose around his face. He smiles, voice not faltering in his motions, and turns his eyes to Steve, nodding his head once. Tony flushes and steels himself, sitting gently down on the pew beside Steve.

Steve doesn’t open his eyes, doesn’t show that he’s even noticed Tony’s arrival, but he breathes out like he was waiting this entire time. The song crescendos and catches at the top before slowly flowing back down again, seamless as water. The tenor in the middle has closed his eyes and Tony smiles down at his lap.

“Didn’t think you would come,” Steve says, soft. Tony glances at him but Steve still isn’t looking, candlelight catching on his face.

“You didn’t factor in all the variables,” Tony whispers back. Steve smiles.

“I like it here.” Steve gestures blindly to the choir. “They have this atmosphere, this voice that just, it brings me back.”

There is a Bible sitting innocently in front of Tony and he lets his eyes slide over it. “To what? The past?”

“Yeah. Back home. With mom, during Christmas. I mean, she died when I was younger, before the war, so it’s not as jarring as with losing Peggy, or Bucky, but still.” Steve’s voice catches, and then he laughs. “I remember this one Christmas, when we were pretty down on our luck, mom bought this ridiculous tree. It was all bent out of shape, twigs snapped off at odd angles and pines needles kept falling off like it was shedding. We decorated it with all of our bobbles and tinsel and lights, and when we stepped back, the entire thing just toppled over.”

Steve opens his eyes, staring up at the ceiling. “We spent a good hour cleaning up the broken glass. And then mom just smiled at me and told me that next year we would get a better tree, a healthier tree.” Steve breathes in. “She didn’t make it to that Christmas.”

“I’m sorry,” Tony says, a catch in his throat. He looks at Steve’s hands, how they’re white knuckled and stressed, and reaches out, careful, careful. Twelve percent says Steve won't pull away, but Tony likes the odds. “What else did you two do?”

Brushing his fingers lightly over Steve’s, he’s mildly surprised when Steve turns his hands over, accepting Tony’s small offer of comfort. Their hands tangle together, and Steve breathes out again. “She used to make all these pies, apple and cherry, rhubarb and raspberry, and she would always give them out to the needy after she was done. But when Christmas day was there, she would save one single pie for us to share, an apple one that was always baked fresh. The house always smelt like cooking.

“And we would get each other these Christmas decorations every year. I would get her some silly animal because she really enjoyed the zoo, and she would always get me an angel. We exchanged them on Christmas Eve, when we decorated the tree, and,” Steve’s voice chokes off and Tony tightens his fingers. Steve sighs out a breath. “I set up a tree, the year she died. I set it up and I put all the ornaments on it, and then I put that extra animal on. It was an elephant. She liked elephants.”

The candlelight catches on a tear and Steve makes no move to wipe it away. He’s smiling, though, grinning as he cries. “She would’ve liked that, I think. Seeing what I did. Every year, even when I was in the army, I put up a tree at Christmas and hung another animal on it. Before the ice, before I died, I put up a little French poodle. I got it from a shop three days before.

“And then Bucky died and I just.” Steve stills, closing his eyes again. Tony doesn’t know what to do in this situation. So, he prods.

“Did you spend any Christmases with Bucky before the war?”

Steve laughs. “Yeah, yeah we did. This one year, he burnt down the tree. Luckily it was before mom put up the decorations but, man, the look on his face when the tinder didn’t catch but the tree _did_. That is imprinted forever in my mind.”

Tony bites at his lip. “I - well, I never had Christmas. Except one.”

Steve rolls his head on the pew, catching Tony’s eye. “How can you only have one Christmas?”

There’s a sharp pain in Tony’s chest that has nothing to do with the arc reactor. “Dad didn’t like it. Neither did mom. Which doesn’t surprise me. But, well, then I met Aunt Peggy, and she just - she made one Christmas for me. She was there and we did all those Christmasy things, like hot cocoa and baking and exchanging presents. She made this ridiculous cocoa, first time I had it was the first time I’d ever experienced something like that. She put chili in the ones at Christmas, giving it that extra kick that almost made me throw up.” Tony laughs, feeling Steve’s fingers tighten over his own. “I wasn’t sure what I was even doing there, half the time, wasn’t sure why she would spend all that time baking and poking me with filling and asking me how things tasted.

“And then we got to the actual gift giving and I’d never had that experience. She sat me down, Christmas Eve, and showed me three presents. Three! I hadn’t - and then she said I was allowed one and the other two would be mine the next day. I grabbed for the biggest one because what kid under the age of eight wouldn’t, and when I opened it, it was this random empty box, and let me tell you that was confusing as all hell, because what, how, what does that even mean? And then Aunt Peggy bundled me up and hugged me and said, ‘That Christmas present is me, ducky.’”

Tony smiles. “We slept on the couch that night, and when I woke up in the morning, I ran upstairs and grabbed her present too. I had made her this weird little recording device that would allow her to transmit tapes to me faster because that’s how we communicated when she was away, she would send me these little tapes with stories on them, and when she opened it she damn near cried. And my other two presents were - well, they were special in a different way.”

The choir has switched to only the tenors and Tony watches them for a bit, enjoying the atmosphere that encompasses them. Steve is silent beside him, just a warm presence pressed against his side, and Tony lets the memory of that Christmas wash over him. He lets his eyes close and just _remembers_.

“I had a Christmas with Peggy, too,” Steve says. “Back in the day, before you met her obviously, and we set up this tree and decorations and everything. Everyone was really excited, mainly because we’d destroyed another HYRDRA base and who wouldn’t be? She sat down at the piano and played this amazing song, all soft key strokes and amazing crescendo, and I think I almost cried that night, in front of my team, because of how beautiful it was. Mom liked that song best, and she would always sing it to me before I went to sleep Christmas eve. Peggy always knew how to catch that part of Christmas and yank it out into the open.”

Tony laughs. “She could do that, yeah.”

The song is back to crescendo again and the choir is lifting their arms, faces toward the ceiling, and Tony wonders if they were singing this song just for this moment. Probability states nine percent certainty, but it’s a nice thought. Steve shifts against him.

“I’m glad you came, Tony.”

“You would’ve been bored without me.”

“I mean it,” Steve twists their fingers back and forth absently. “It’s nice sharing Christmas with someone who cares.”

“You won’t get rid of me that easily,” Tony quips back, trying to stuff down the emotional upheaval in his head. He bites at his tongue. “Any other stories you want to share?”

It’s not something Tony is used to doing, but with the choir soft in the background and the darkness cocooning them in warmth, it’s something he might get used to.


End file.
